The Raspberry Pi 4 is not $40.

I found the 1 GB version for $160, while a 4GB kit is at $240 in my go-to online shop.

Great comment. Hits many nails!

https://babylonbee.com/news/fa...

Good summary.

Many people clearly have problems and are really scared (and I'm not talking about the at-risk-of-covid group), or they have been conditioned into thinking they are indeed wearing their mask for the greater good.

It is surprising that there are so many people around with severe mental disorders.

What if I don't have a smartphone?

Will does gift credit card work?

I'm sure you pay a fee for those, however, it sounds like that will back itself back manifold on first blunder.

Yeap. How clean is your social media record? Said anything that the powers that be might find inconvenient lately? You'll be dragged off that plane like a toddler who wont wear his mask.

Social credit score next?

Did you hear about George Floyd? It was a rather big thing last summer. Killed in broad daylight while people were begging for the murderer to stop. Oh yeah, and the killer was a police. There's about 1100 cases of death by the US police per year.

Heard about "civil forfeiture" aka police racketeering? Last I checked, to the tune of billions.

Would fewer police result in fewer of these cases? Yes, I think so.

> Furthermore, you are wrong, if you defund the police, crime will increase.

That doesn't makes any sense. By that logic, we should put absolutely all our resources into policing to reduce crime to zero. There's obviously a balancing point. Currently, the police is "overweight".

I'm not arguing for removing police altogether. However, the overreach in budget, time and laws is a problem virtually everywhere.

"If you're armed, shoot center-of-mass as normal".

GP's comment makes sense: Police needs to be defunded to a fraction of their current budget everywhere.

> the country leads the world in COVID deaths and confirmed cases with more than 27 million -- with the weighted average of other G-7 nations

That's the thing with statistics. They can be crafted to produce any conclusion you want.

Looking at this overview, at the time of writing, US is listed 9th when sorted by "Deaths / 1M pop", or 7th if you ignore the micro states. Belgium has about 25% more deaths per population.

https://www.worldometers.info/...

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
        But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
        You never get rid of the Dane.

- Rudyard Kipling
        Dane-Geld, A.D. 980-1016